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UNITED STATES OP AMERICA. 



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/ 

JOHN RUSKIN. 



COMPILED BY ROSE PORTEI 



New York: 

.■' \/^ 
ANSON D. r. RANDOLPH A COltlPAB^ 

38 Wes,t Twenty-third StreetiV^^ L^<% y/' 



\\ 






COPYRIGHT, 1888, BY 
ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & COMPANY. 



Remember— 

Literature does its duty in raising our fancy to the height of 
Zi)hat tnay be nohle^ honesty and felicitous in actual life; in giving 
us the companionship of the wisest fellow-spirits of every age and 
country^ and in aiding the communication of clear- thoughts and 
faithful purposes. 
J 



The whole difference between a man of genius and other men, is 
that the first remains in great part a child, seeing with the large eyes 
of children, in perpetual wonder, not conscious of much knowledge, 
— conscious, rather of infinite ignorance, and yet infinite power ; a 
fountain of eternal admiration, delight, and creative force \vithin 
him meeting the ocean of visible and governable things around him. 



All men are to be men of genius in their degree, .... rimlets or 
rivers, it does not matter, so that their souls be clear and pure. 

5 



Work is only done well when it is done with a will ; and no man 
has a thoroughly sound will unless he knows he is doing what he 
should, and is in his place. 



There is no action so shght nor so mean, but it may be done to a 
great purpose, and ennobled thereby ; nor is any purpose so great but 
that slight actions may help it, and may be done so as to help it 
much, most especially that chief of all purposes, the pleasing God. 
6 



That virtue of originality that men so strive after, is not newness 
as they vainly think,— there is nothing new— it is only genuineness : 
it all depends on this single glorious faculty of getting to the spring 
of things and working out from that ; it is the coolness, and clearness, 
and deliciousness of the water fresh from the fountain-head, opposed 
to the thick, hot, unrefreshing drainage from other men's meadows. 



^fwity; xx{ Tasta, 



Our purity of taste is best tested by its universality, for if we 
can only admire this thing or that, we may be sure that our cause 
for liking is of a finite and false nature. But if we can perceive 
beauty in everything of God's doing, we may argue that we have 
reached the true perception of its universal laws. 



True taste is for ever growing, learning, reading, worshipping. 
.... And it finds whereof to feed, and whereby to grow in all 
things. 



So long as men shall receive earthly gifts from God, of all that 
they have His tithe must be rendered to Him, or in so far, and in so 
much He is forgotten : of the skill and of the treasure, of the 
strength and of the mind, of the time and of the toil, offering must 
be made reverently : and if there be any difference between the Le- 
vitical and the Christian offering, it is that the latter may be just so 
much the wider in its range as it is less typical in its meaning, as it 
is thankful instead of sacrificial. 



The et^0:8$. 

Remember that Christ Himself never says anythmg about holding 
by His Cross. He speaks a good deal of bearing it ; but never 
for an instant of holding by it. It is His Hand, not His Cross, 
which is to save either you, or St. Peter, when the waves are rough. 



*' Taking up one's Cross." — It means simply that you are to go the 
road which you see to be the straight one ; carrying whatever you 
find is given you to carry, as well and stoutly as you can. 



Silence t^gavMng WxKi^k. 

The moment a man can really do his work, he becomes speech- 
less about it. All words become idle to him — all theories. — Does a 
bird need to theorize about building its nest, or boast of it when 
built ? 

That journey of life's conquest, in which hills over hills, and Alps 
on Alps arose and sank — do you think you can make another tread 
it painlessly, by talking ? Why, you cannot even carry us up an Alp, 
by talking. You can guide us up it, step by step, no otherwise, — 
even so, best silently. 



^n^^X Baauttj. 



They who are as the angels of God in Heaven, yet cannot be con- 
ceived as so assimilated that their different experiences and affec- 
tions upon earth shall there be forgotten and effectless ; the child 
taken early to his place cannot be imagined to wear there such a 
body, nor to have such thoughts, as the glorified apostle who has 
finished his course and kept the faith on earth. And so whatever 
perfections and lilceness of love we may attribute to either the tried 
or the crowned creature, there is the difference of the stars among 
them. 



See that no day passes in which you do not mate yourself a 
somewhat better creature ; and in order to do that, find out first 

what you are now Try to get strength of heart enough to 

look yourself fairly in the face, in mind, as well as body. 



You will find that the mere resolve not to be useless, and the hon- 
est desire to help other people, will, in the quickest and delicatest 
ways, improve yourself. 

«3 



The Bible, 



The real meaning, in its first power, of the word Bible, is not, 
book merely : but * Bibliotheca,' Treasury of Books Con- 
sider what other group of historic and didactic literature has a range 

comparable with it Think if you can match that table of 

contents, in any other — I do not say ' book,' but literature ? 



The Bible is indeed a deep book, where depth is required, that is 
to say, for deep people. But it is not intended particularly for pro- 
found persons. And therefore the main and leading idea of the 
Bible, is on its surface ; needing nothing, but we all might give — 
attention. 



True Uio. 

This do, and thou shalt live ; nay, in stricter and more piercing 
sense, This de, and thou shalt live ; to show mercy is nothing — the 
soul must be full of mercy; to be pure in act is nothing— thou 
shalt be pure in heart also. 



Connect the words * charity ' and * labor ' under the general term of 
' bearing the cross.' " If any man will come after me, let him deny 
himself— for charity— and take up his cross— of pain — and follow 



It is only for those who have obeyed the law sincerely, to say how 
far the hope held out to them by the law-giver has been fulfilled. 
X5 



The highest knowledge always involves a more advanced percep* 
tion of the fields of the unknown ; and, therefore, it may most truly 
be said, that to know anything well involves a profound sensation o! 
ignorance, while yet it is equally true that good and noble knowl- 
edge is distinguished from vain and useless knowledge chiefly by its 
clearness and distinctness, and by the rigorous consciousness of 
what is known and what is not. 



There was always more in the world than men could see, walked 
they ever so slowly. 



Stijl^. 



Your own character will form your style ; your own zeal wUl 
direct it ; your own obstinacy or ignorance may limit or exagger- 
ate it. 

Greatness of style consists in the habitual choice of subjects of 
thought which involve wide interests and profound passions, as op- 
posed to those which involve narrow interests aud slight passions. 
The style is greater or less in exact proportion to the nobleness of 
the interests and passions involved in the subject. 
17 



In the measure in which a Christian trusts Christ, obeys the Fa- 
ther, and consents with the Spirit, he becomes inspired in feeling, 
act, word, and reception of word, according to the capacities of his 
nature. He is not gifted with higher ability, nor called into new 
offices, but enabled to use his granted natural powers, in their ap- 
pointed place, to the best purpose. A child is inspired as a child, 
and a maiden as a maiden ; the weak, even in their weakness, and 
the wise only in their hour. 



Tb^ Early Jtg^s txf ©bristianity:* 

In the early ages of Christianity there was little care taken to 
analyze character. One momentous question was heard over the 
whole world : " Dost thou believe in the Lord with all thine heart ? " 
There was but one division among men, — the great division between 
the disciple and adversary. The love of Christ was all, and in all. 
.... And in their pure, early, and practical piety they saw there 
was no need for codes of morality, or systems of metaphysics. 
J 19 



Faitb and IMixvt 



The early Christians felt that virtue, like sin, was a subtle uni- 
versal thing ; . . . . diverse according to the separate framework of 
every heart in which it dwelt ; but one and the same always in its 
proceeding from the love of God, as sin is one and the same in 
proceeding from hatred of God And, through faith, work- 
ing by love, they know that all human excellence would be developed 
in due order ; but that, without faith, neither reason could define, 
nor effort reach, the lowest phase of Christian virtue. 



ip[^atr^n and jpi^U, 



In the utmost solitudes of Nature, the existence of Hell seems to 
me as legibly declared by a thousand spiritual utterances, as that of 
Heaven. It is well for us to dwell with thankfulness on the unfold- 
ing of the flower, and the falling of the dew, and the sleep of the 
green fields in the sunshine ; but the blasted trunk, the moaning of 
the bleak winds, the solemn solitudes of moors and seas, the continual 
fading of all beauty into darkness, and of all strength into dust, 
have these no language for us ? 



spiritual IfridD. 



The moment that in our pride of heart, we refuse to accept the 
condescension of the Almighty, and desire Him, instead of stooping 
to hold our hands, to rise up before us into His glory, — we hoping 
that by standing on a grain of dust or two of human knowledge 
higher than our fellows, we may behold the Creator as He rises — 
God takes us at our word ; He rises into His own invisible and in- 
conceivable majesty : He goes forth upon the ways which are not 
our ways, and retires into the thoughts which are not our thoughts ; 
— and we are left alone. 



He is not a preaching Saint, still less a persecuting one ; not even 
an anxious one. Of his prayers we hear little ; of his wishes, noth- 
ing. What he does always, is merely the right thing at the right 
moment ; — rightness and kindness being in his mind one ; an ex- 
tremely exemplary Saint to my mind. In his gentleness was his 
strength. What distinguished him was his sweet, serious, unfailing 
serenity : no one ever saw him angry, or sad, or gay ; there was 
nothing in his heart but piety to God, and pity for men. 
23 



I trust that some day the language of Types will be more read 
and understood by us than it has been for centuries ; and when this 
language, a better one than either Greek or Latin, is again recog- 
nized amongst us, we shall find, or remember, that as the other vis- 
ible elements of the universe — its air, its water, and its flame — set 
forth, in their pure energies, the life-giving, purifying, and sanctify- 
ing influences of the Deity upon His creatures, so the earth, in its 
purity, sets forth His eternity and His Truth. 
24 



Without ignobly trusting the devices of artificial memory— far less 
slighting the power of resolute and thoughtful memory— young read- 
ers will find it extremely useful to note any coincidence or hnks of 
nuaber which may serve to secure in their minds what may be 
called Dates of Anchorage, round which others, less important, may 
swing at various cable's lengths. 



By right discipline we can increase our strength. 
»5 



What Christ's life z's, what His commands are, and what His judg- 
ment wz7/ be, not what He once did, nor what He once suffered, but 
what He is now doing — and what He requires us to do ; that is the 
pure, joyful, beautiful lesson of Christianity ; and the fall from that 
faith, and all the corruptions of its abortive practice, may be summed 
up briefly as the habitual contemplation of Christ's death instead of 
His Life, and the substitution of His past suffering for our present 

duty. 

26 



The JleUgixrt): ni Faith and f^ny-^. 

If striving with all your might to mend what is evil, near and 

around, you would fain look for a day when some Judge of all 

the Earth shall wholly do right : — if parting from the companions 

that have given you all the best joy you had on Earth, you desire 

ever to see their eyes again and clasp their hands : — if preparing 

yourselves to lie down beneath the grass in silence and loneliness, 

you would care for the promise to j'^ou, of a time when you should 

see God's light again, and know the things you have longed to 

know, — and walk in the peace of Everlasting Love, — t/ten^ the Hope 

of these things to you is religion, the Substance of them in your Ufe 

is Faith. 

27 



Wmh an;d jpLap:p:toB88. 

It may be proved, with much certainty, that God intends no man 
to live in this w^orld without working : but it seems to me no less 

evident that He intends every man to be happy in his work 

Now in order that people may be happy in their work, these three 
things are needed : They must be fit for it ; they must not do too 

much of it ; and they must have a sense of success in it So 

that in order that a man maybe happy, it is necessary that he should 
not only be capable of his work, but a good judge of his work. 



Tnta 3fi^o;gi^a$8. 



The healthy sense of progress, which is necessary to the strength 
and happiness of men, does not consist in tlie anxiety of a struggle 
to attain higher place or work, but in gradually perfecting the man- 
ner, and accomplishing the ends, of the life which we have chosen, 
or which circumstances have determined for us. 



Without the resolution in your hearts to do good work, so long as 
your right hands have motion in them : and to do it whether the 
issue be that you die or live, no life worthy the name will ever be 
possible to you, while in once forming the resolution that your work 
is to be well done, life is really won, here and for ever. 
29 



gt[ime jp[ii:);d^rBiJ. 



Crime cannot be hindered by punishment ; it will always find some 
shape or outlet, unpunishable or unclosed. Crime can only be truly 
hindered by letting no man grow up a criminal — ^by taking away the 
will to commit sin ; not by mere punishment of its commission. 
Crime, small and great, can only be truly stayed by education — not 
the education of the intellect only, which is on some men wasted, 
and for others mischievous : but education of the heart, which is 
alike good and necessary for all. 

30 



In general, pride is at the bottom of all great mistakes. All the 
other passions do occasional good, but whenever pride puts in its 
word, everything goes wrong, and what it might be desirable to do 
quietly and innocently, it is morally dangerous to do proudly. 



Whenever pride has any share in the work, even knowledge and 

light may be ill pursued Every rightly constituted mind 

ought to rejoice, not so much in knowing anything clearly, as in 
feeling that there is infinitely more which it cannot know. 
31 



Iducaf.ixxt):. 

" What he layeth out, it shall be paid him again," is quite literally- 
true in matters of education ; no money-seed can be sown with so 
sure and large returns at harvest-time as that ; only of this money- 
seed, more than of flesh-seed, it is utterly true, "That which thou 
sowest is not quickened, except it dte.''^ You must forget your 
money, and every other material interest, and educate for education's 
sake only ! or the very good you try to bestow will become venomous, 
and that and your money will be lost together. 
32 



TmB gbarity;. 



You know how often it is difficult to be wisely charitable, to do 
good without multiplying the sources of evil. You know that to 
give alms is nothing unless you give thought also ; and that there- 
fore, it is written, not " blessed is he \.\idX feedeth the poor," but 
"blessed is he that considereih the poor." And you know that a 
little thought and a little kindness are often worth more than a great 
deal of money. This charity of thought is not merely to be exercised 
toward the poor ; it is to be exercised toward all men. 
33 



3ft5aca 



Which of us feels or knows that he wants peace ? — There are two 
ways of getting it^ if you do want it. The first is wholly in your own 

power ; to make yourselves nests of pleasant thoughts What 

fairy palaces we may build of beautiful thought — proof against all 
adversity. Bright fancies, satisfied memories, noble histories, faith- 
ful sayings, treasure-houses of precious and restful thoughts, which 
care cannot disturb, nor pain make gloomy, nor poverty take away 
from us — homes built without hands, for our souls to live in. 
34 



Whenever you hear a man dissuading you from attempting to do 
well, on the ground that perfection is "Utopian," beware of that 
man. Cast the word out of your dictionary altogether. There is no 

need of it. Things are either possible or impossible If the 

thing is impossible, you need not trouble yourself about it ; if possi- 
ble, try for it. It is very Utopian to hope for the entire doing away 
with drunkenness and misery ; but the Utopianism is not our bus- 
iness—the work is. It is Utopian to hope to give every child the 
knowledge of God ; but the Utopianism in not our business— the 

vooi'k is. 

35 



Tvn-^ Stt^^iigih* 



The true strength of every human soul is to be dependent on as 
many nobler as it can discern, and to be depended upon, by as many 
inferior as it can reach 

As the first order of Wisdom is to know thyself — though the least 
creature that can be known— so the first order of Charity is to be suf- 
ficient for thyself, though the least creature that can be sufficed : 
and thus contented and appeased, to be girded and strong for the 
ministry to others. If sufficient to thy day is the evil thereof, how 
much more should be the good ! 

36 



iBt^sibility;. 



By sensibility I mean natural perception of beauty, fitness, and 
rightness ; or of what is lovely, decent, and just : faculties depend- 
ent much on race, and the primal signs of fine breeding in man ; 
but cultivable also by education, and necessarily perishing without it. 
True education has, indeed, no other function than the development 
of these faculties, and of the relative will. It has been the great 
error of modern intelligence to mistake science for education. You 
do not educate a man by telhng him what he knew not, but by mak- 
ing him what he was not. 

37 



Custom has no real influence upon our feelings of the beautiful, 
except in dulling and checking them. You see the broad blue sky 
every day over your heads ; but you do not for that reason deter- 
mine blue to be more or less beautiful than you did at first ; you are 
accustomed to see stones as blue as the sapphire, but you do not for 
that reason think the sapphire less beautiful than other stones. The 
blue color is everlastingly appointed by the Deity to be a source of 

delight. 

38 



No human actions ever were intended by the Maker of men to be 

guided by balances of expediency, but by balances of justice 

I have said balances of justice, meaning, in the term justice, to in- 
clude affection, — such affection as one man owes to another. All 
right relations between master and operative, and all their best in- 
terests, ultimately depend on these. 



Twenty people can gain money for one who can use it ; and the 
vital question, for individual and for nation, is never " how much do 
they make ? " but, " to what purpose do they spend ? " 
39 



BxxxKks and 3|aadit);g» 

Life being very short, and the quiet hours of it few, we ought 

to waste none of them in reading valueless books No book 

is worth anything which is not worth viztcJi ; nor is it serviceable, 
until it has been read, and re-read, and loved, and loved again ; and 
marked, so that you can refer to the passages you want in it, as a 
soldier can seize the weapon he needs in an armory, or a house-wife 
bring the spice she needs from her store. 
40 



Tb0 ^alu^ txt 'Utj.ixh^. 

Books ! — the value of them consists first, in their power of pre- 
serving and communicating the knowledge of facts — ^secondly, in 
their power of exciting vital or noble emotions and intellectual 
action. 

We talk of food for the mind, as of food for the body ; now a 

good book contains such food inexhaustibly Bread of flour 

is good ; but there is bread, sweet as honey, if we would eat it, in a 
good book ; and the family must be poor indeed, which, once in 
their lives, cannot, for such multipliable barley-loaves pay their bak- 
er's bills. 

.4* 



Tb$ W(x\\} Itxxib. 



If we always spoke of "The Holy Book" instead of "Holy 
Bible," it might come into more heads than it does at present that 
the Word of God, by which the heavens were of old, and by which 
they are now kept in store, cannot be made a present to anybody in 
morocco binding ; nor sown on any wayside by help either of steam 
plough or steam press ; but is nevertheless being offered to us daUy, 
and by us with contumely refused ; and sown in us daily, and by us 
as instantly as may be, choked. 

42 



We are too much in the habit of considering happy accidents 
•• special Providences "; and thinking that when any great work 
needs to be done, the man who is to do it will certainly be pointed 
out by Providence Whereas all the analogies of God's oper- 
ations in other matters prove the contrary of this And there 

cannot be a doubt in the mind of any person accustomed to take 
broad and logical views of the world's history, that its events are 
ruled by Providence in precisely the same manner as its harvests, 
.... and that according to the force of our industry, and wisdom 
of our husbandry, the ground will bring forth to us figs or thistles. 
J 43 



Education enables us to consult with the wisest and the greatest 
men on all points of earnest difficulty. It enables us to use books 
rightly, and to go to them for help : to appeal to them, when our 
own knowledge and power of thought fail ; to be led by them into 
wider sight, purer conception than our own, and receive from them 
the united sentence of the judges and councils of all time against 
our solitary and unstable opinion. 
44 



Marriage— when it is marriage at aU— is only the seal which marks 
the vowed transition of temporary into untiring semce, and of fitful 
into eternal love. 

We are foolish in speaking of the " superiority" of one sex to the 
other, as if they could be compared in similar things. Each has 
what the other has not : each completes the other, and is completed 
by the other : they are in nothing alike, and the happiness and per- 
fection of both depends on each asking and receiving from the other 
what the other only can give. 



Mi^n and W0mt)n. 

The man's power is active, progressive, defensive. He is eminent- 
ly the doer, the creator, the discoverer, the defender. His intellect 

is for speculation and invention But the woman's power is 

for rule, and her intellect is not for invention or creation, but for 
sweet ordering, arrangement, and decision. She sees the qualities 

of things, their claims and their places A woman, in any 

rank of life, ought to know whatever her husband is likely to know, 
but to know it in a different way. His command of it should be 
foundational and progressive, hers, general, and accomplished for 

daily and helpful use. 

46 



WDimatily; Beauty;* 



The perfect loveliness of a woman's countenance can only consist 
in that majestic peace which is founded in the memory of happy and 
useful years,— full of sweet records ; and from the joining of this 
with that yet more majestic childishness which is still full of change 
and promise : — opening always — modest at once, and bright, with 
hope of better things to be won, and to be bestowed. There is no 
old age where there is still that promise — it is eternal youth. 
47 



God appoints to every one of His creatures a separate mission, and 
if they discharge it honorably, and faithfully follow that Light which 
is in them, withdrawing from it all cold and quenchless influence, there 
will assuredly come of it such burning as, according to its appointed 
mode and measure, shall shine before men, and be of service con- 
stant and holy. Degrees infinite of lustre there must always be, but 
the weakest among us has a gift, however seemingly trivial, which is 
peculiar to him, and which worthily used, will be a gift also to his 

race for ever. 

48 



^txxxnv^inQ &ttd.. 



We treat God with irreverence by banishing Him from our 

thoughts, not by refening to His will on slight occasions 

There is nothing so small but that we may honor God by asking His 
guidance of it, or insult Him by taking it into our own hands ; and 
what is true of the Deity is equally true of His Revelation. We use 
it most reverently when most habitually ; our insolence is in ever 
acting without reference to it, our true honoring of it is in its uni- 
versal appUcation The snow, the vapor, and the stormy wind 

fulfil His Word. Are our acts and thoughts lighter and wider than 
these — that we should forget it ? 



Jfuman Batut^^* 



It is constantly said that human nature is heartless. Do not be- 
lieve it. Human nature is kind and generous ; but it is narrow and 
blind, and can only with difficulty conceive anything but what it im- 
mediately sees and feels. People would instantly care for others as 
wen as themselves if only they could imagine others as well as them- 
selves It is impossible to speak adequately of the moral 

power of the imagination Every man holds in his conceptive 

faculty a kingdom which may be peopled vdth active thoughts and 
lovely presences, or left waste for the springing up of dark desires. 



Among the children of God, while there is always that fearful 
and bowed apprehension of His majesty, and that sacred dread of 
all offence to Him, which is called the fear of God, yet of real and 
essential fear there is not any, but clinging of confidence to Him, 
as their Rock, Fortress, and Deliverer, and perfect love, and casting 
out of fear, so that it is not possible that while the mind is rightly 
bent on Him there should be dread of am-thing either earthly or 
supernatural. 

J 



ipiumat); 3S6autt|» 



They err grossly who think of the right development even of the 
intellectual type as possible, unless we look to the higher sources of 

beauty first And so the ideal of the features, as the good 

and perfect soul is seen in them, is not to be reached by imagina- 
tion, but by the seeing and reaching forth of the better part of the 
soul to that of which it must first know the sweetness and goodness 

in itself The great reasoners are self-command, and trust 

unagitated, and deep-looking Love and Faith, which, as she is 
above Reason, best holds the reins of it from her high seat. 

52 



ILixv^ ixi iS^M and Wm%. 

He who loves not God, nor his brother, cannot love the grass 
beneath his feet, and the creatures that fill those spaces in the uni- 
verse which he needs not, and which live not for his uses ; nay, he 
has seldom grace to be grateful even to those that love him and 
serve him, while, on the other hand, none can love God, and his 
human brother, without loving all things which his Father loves, nor 
without looking upon them every one as in that respect his brethren 
also, and perhaps worthier than he, if in the under concords they 
have to fill, their part is touched more truly. 
53 



3|.^$t and ?^ax)^Mn:^$8, ' 

Whether in one or other form, whether the faithfulness of man 
whose path is chosen as in the Thermopylffi camp ; or the happier 
faithfuhiess of children in the good giving of their Father, as in the 
'* stand still and see the salvation of God " of the Red Sea shore, 
there is rest and peacefulness, the "standing still" in both, the 
quietness of action determined, of spirit unalarmed, of expectation 
unimpatient ; beautiful, even when based only, on the self-command 
or the uncalculating love of the creature, but more beautiful yet 
when the rest is one of humility instead of pride, and the trust no 
more in the resolution we have taken, but in the Hand we hold. 
54 



la^mttj. 



The only Unity which by any means can become grateful or 

an object of hope to men, and whose types therefore in material 

things can be beautiful, is that on which turned the last words and 

prayer of Christ before His crossing of the Kedron brook. " Neither 

pray I for thee alone, but for them also which shall believe on Me 

through their word, that they all may be one, as Thou, Father, art 

in Me, and I in Thee." And so there is not any matter, nor any 

spirit, nor any creature, but it is capable of a unity of some kind 

with other creatures. 

55 



The unity of spirits is partly in their sympathy, and partly in their 
giving and taking, and always in their love ; and these are their 
delight and their strength, for their strength is in their co-working 
and army fellowship, and their delight is in the giving and receiving 
of alternate perpetual currents of good, their inseparable dependency 
on each other's being, and their essential and perfect depending on 
their Creator's ; and so the unity of earthly creatures is their power 
and their peace, .... the living power of trust, and the living 
power of support, of hands that hold each other and are still. 
56 



I rather believe that in periods of new effort and violent change, 
disappointment is a wholesome medicine : and that in the secret of it, 
as in the twilight so beloved by Titian, we may see the colors of things 
with deeper truth than in the more dazzling sunshine. 

The more that my life disappointed me, the more solemn and 
wonderful it became to me ; for I saw that both my own failure, and 
such success in petty things, as in its poor triumph seemed to me 
more than failure, came from the want of sufficiently earnest effort 
to understand the whole law and meaning of existence and to bring 
it to a noble and due end. 

57 



Art, History, and Philosophy, are each but one part of the Heaven- 
ly Wisdom, which sees not as man seeth, but with Eternal Charity ; 
and because she rejoices not in Iniquity, tJierefore rejoices in the 
Truth. 

Under all sorrow, there is the force of virtue ; over all ruin, the 
restoring charity of God. To these alone we have to look ; in these 
alone we may understand the past, and predict the future. 
58 



halite xxf KnnvcU&gi^. 

Knowledge is mental food, and is exactly to the spirit what food 

is to the body Therefore, with respect to knowledge, we are 

to reason and act exactly as with respect to food. 



The increase of knowledge, merely as such, does not make the 
soul larger or smaller, in the sight of God. All the knowledge 
man can gain is as nothing, but that the soul, for which the great 
scheme of redemption was laid, be it ignorant or be it wise, is all in 
all : and in the activity, strength, and well-being of this soul lies the 
difference in God's sight between one man and another. 
59 



Thfi Sift nt 3ffiace. 



The great call of Christ to men, is accompanied by the promise of 
rest : and the death-bequest of Christ to men is "peace." 



You may assuredly find peace, if you are resolved to do that which 
your Lord has plainly required — and content that He should want no 
more of you than to do Justice, to love Mercy, and to walk humbly 
with Him. 

The world would be a place of peace if we were all peace-makers. 

60 



The true and great sciences, more especially natural history, make 
men gentle and modest in proportion to the largeness of their ap- 
prehension and just perception of the infinitenecs of the things they 
can never know. And this, it seems to me, is the principal lesson 
we are intended to be taught by the book of Job ; for there God has 
thrown open to us the heart of a man most just and holy, and ap- 
parently perfect in all things possible to human nature except humil- 
ity. For this he is tried ; and we are shown that no suffering, no 
self-examination, however honest, however stem, no searching out 
of the heart by its own bitterness, is enough to convince man of his 
nothingness before God : but that the sight of God's creation will 

doit. 

6i 



J|.aal Exijtx^^xrt^xxU. 



All real and wholesome enjoyments possible to man have been just 
as possible to him, since first he was made of the earth, as they are 
now ; and they are possible to him chiefly in peace. To watch the 
corn grow, and the blossoms set ; to draw hard breath over plough- 
share or spade ; to read, to think, to love, to hope, to pray,— these 
are the things that make men happy ; they have always had the 
power of doing these, they never zui7/ have power to do more. The 
world's prosperity or adversity depends upon our knowing and teach- 
ing these few things : but upon iron, or glass, or electricity, or steam, 
in no wise. 

63 



The HLimitatixrt): of Facts. 

You never can get at the literal limitation of living facts. They 
disguise themselves by the very strength of their life : get told again 
and again in different ways by all manner of people : — the literalness 
of them is turned topsy-turvy, inside-out, over and over again : — 
then the fools come and read them wrong side upwards, or else, they 
say there never was a fact at all. Nothing delights a true blockhead 
so much as to prove a negative : — to show that everybody has been 
wrong. — Fancy the delicious sensation, to an empty-headed creature, 
of fancying for a moment that he has emptied everybody else's head 
as well as his own I 

63 



3|ed6mp;tixit):. 



All redemption must begin in subjection, and in the recovery of 
the sense of Fatherhood and authority, as all ruin and desolation 
beg-an in the loss of that sense. The lost son began by claiming his 
rights. He is found when he resigns them. 



He himself has sinned, as distinguished from righteous persons. 
.... That is the hard lesson to learn, and the beginning of faith- 
ful lessons. All right and fruitful humility and purging of heart, 
and seeing of God is in that. 

64 



Th^ Beauty ni jp[0Un;ess. 

Perfect the day shall be, when it is of all men understood that the 
beauty of Holiness must be in labour as well as in rest. Nay ; more, 
if it may be in labour ; in our strength, rather than in our weakness ; 
and in the choice of what we shall work for through the six days, 
and may know to be good at their evening time, than in the choice 
of what we pray for on the seventh of repose or reward. 



All one's life is a music, if one touches the notes rightly and in 
time. 



Bttdy and BtjLul. 



Body and Soul — the man is made of both : they are to be raised 

and glorified together I would insist upon the whole man 

being in his work : the body musi be in it. Hands and habits must 
be in it, whether we will or not ; but the nobler part of the man may 
often not be in it. And that nobler part acts principally in love, 
reverence, and admiration, together with those conditions of thought 
that arise out of them. For we usually fall into much error by con- 
sidering the intellectual powers as having dignity in themselves, and 
separable from the heart : whereas the truth is, that the intellect 
becomes noble and ignoble according to the food we give it. 
66 



spiritual lAU. 



Everything which man rightly accomplishes is indeed done by Di- 
vine help, but under a consistent law which is never departed from. 
Tlie strength of the spiritual life within us may be increased or 
lessened by our own conduct ; it is summoned on different occasions 
by our will, and dejected by our distress, or our sin ; hvt it is always 
equally human, and equally Divine. We are men, and not mere 
animals, because a special form of it is with us always ; we are 
nobler and baser men, as it is with us more or less, but it is never 
given to us in any degree which can make us more than men 
J 67 



Is there but one day of judgment ? Why, for us every day is a 
day of judgment, — every day is a Dies Ir.-c and writes its irrevocable 
verdict in the flame of the West. Think you that judgment waits 
till the doors of the grave are opened ? It waits at tlie doors of your 
houses — it waits at the corners of your streets ; we are in the midst 
of judgment, the insects that we ciiish are our judges, the moments 
we fret away are our judges, the elements that feed us, judge, as they 
minister, and the pleasures that deceive us, judge as they indulge. 
68 



Tho Wrxrk of Mctx 

Let us for our lives do the work of men, while we bsar the form 

of them "The work of men,"— and what is that ?— Well, 

we may any of us know veiy quickly, on the condition of being 
wholly ready to do it 

"Wliatever our station in life may be, those of us who mean to ful- 
fil our duty, ought first to hve on as little as we can ; and secondly, 
to do all the wholesome work for it we can, and to spend all we can 
spare in doing all the good we can. 
69 



The function of ornament is to make you happy. Now in what 
are you rightly happy ? Not in thinking of what you have done 
yourself : not in your own pride, not your own birth ; not in your own 
being, or your own will, but in looking at God ; watching what He 
does ; what He is ; and obeying His law ; and yielding yourself to 
His will. You are made to be happy by ornaments : therefore they 
must be the expression of all this : not copies of your own handi- 
work, not boastings of your own grandeur : not heraldries, not 
King's arms, nor any creature's arms, but God's Arm seen in His 

work. 

70 



3flagian$m. 

The charge of plagiarism is hardly ever made but by plagiarists, 
and persons of the unhappy class who do not believe in honesty but 
on evidence. 



Touching plagiarism in general, it is to be remembered that all 
men who have sense and feeling are being continually helped : they 
are taught by every person whom they meet, and enriched by every- 
thing that falls in their way. The greatest is he who has been oft- 
enest aided Yet nothing that is truly great can ever be alto- 
gether borrowed ; and he is commonly the wisest, and is always 
the happiest, who receives simply, and without envious question, 
whatever good is offered him, with thanks to its immediate giver. 
71 



Ji880;ciatiTO ftxv^^v. 



I believe that mere pleasure and pain have less associative power 
than duty performed or omitted, and that the great use of the asso- 
ciative faculty is not to add beauty to material things, but to add 
force to the conscience. But for this external and all-powerful wit- 
ness, the voice of the inward guide might be lost in each particular 
instance, almost as soon as disobeyed Therefore it has re- 
ceived the power of enhsting external and unmeaning things in its 
aid, and transmitting to all that is indifferent, its own authority to 
reprove or reward, so that, as we travel the way of life, we have 
the choice, according to our working, of turning all the voices of 
nature into one song of rejoicing, or into a crying out of her stones, 
and a shaking of her dust against us. 
73 



Inscriptions. 



Inscriptions in churches, in rooms, and on pictures, are often de- 
sirable, but they are not to be considered as architectural or pictorial 
ornaments ; they are, on the contrary, not to be suffered except when 
their intellectual office introduces them. Place them, therefore, 
where they will be read, and there only : and let them be plainly 
written, and not turned upside down, nor wrong end first. It is an 
ill sacrifice to beauty to make that illegible, whose only merit is in 
its sense. Write the Commandments on the church walls where 
they may be plainly seen, but do not put a dash and a tail to every 

letter. 

73 



Th$ Mx} and Hptxw^r txt l^^vi^v^no^. 

TJiis is the thing which I know — and which, if you labour faithfully, 
you shall know also,. — that in Reverence is the chief joy and power of 
life ; — Reverence for what is pure and bright in your own youth ; for 
what is true and tried in the age of others : for all that is gracious 
among the living, great among the dead, — and marvellous in the 
Powers that cannot die. 

74 



ardcr and Kindness. 

These are the two essential instincts of humanity : the love of 
Order and the love of Kindness. By the love of order, the moral 
energy is to deal with the earth, and to dress it, and to keep it : and 
with all rebellious and dissolute forces in lower creatures, or in our- 
selves. By the love of doing kindness, it is to deal rightly with all 
surrounding life. And then, grafted on these, we are to make every 
other passion perfect ; so that they may, every one, have full strength 
and yet be absolutely under control, 
J 75 



When the active life is nobly fulfilled and the mind is raised above 
it in clear and calm beholding of the world around us — the simplest 
forms of Nature are strangely animated by the sense of the Divine 
Presence : the trees and flowers seem all, in a sort, children of God. 
.... And all the common uses and palpably visible forms of things 
become subordinate in our minds to their inner glory, — to the myste- 
rious voices in which they talk to us about God, and the thoughtful 
and typical aspects by which they witness to us of holy truth, and fill 
us with obedient, joyful, and thankful emotions. 
76 



Sxxd in l:atW3» 

The work of the Great Spirit of nature is as deep and unapproach- 
able in the lowest as in the noblest objects ; the Divine mind is as 
visible in its full energy of operation on every lowly bank and mould- 
ering stone, as in the lifting of the pillars of heaven and settling the 
foundations of the earth ; and to the rightly perceiving mind there is 
the same infinity, the same majesty, the same power, the same unity, 
and the same perfection, manifest in the casting of the clay as in the 
scattering of the cloud, in the mouldering of the dust as in the kind- 
ling of the day-star. 

77 



The truth of Nature is a part of the truth of God : to him who 
does not search it out, darkness, as it is to him who does, infinity. 



The teaching of Nature is as varied and infinite as it is constant. 
.... Her finest touches are things which must be watched for ; 
her most perfect passages of beauty are the most evanescent. She 
is constantly doing something beautiful for us, but it is something 

which she has not done before and will not do again She 

always tells a story, however hintedly and vaguely. 
78 



The Sli^. 



The sky is for all— bright as it is, it is not " too bright, nor good 
for human nature's daily food "; it is fitted in all its functions for 
the perpetual comfort and exalting of the heart, for the soothing it 
and purifying it from dross and dust. Sometimes gentle, sometimes 
capricious, sometimes awful, never the same for two minutes to- 
gether ; almost human in its passions, almost spiritual in its tender- 
ness, almost divine in its infinity, its appeal to what is immortal in 
us, is as distinct as its ministry of chastisement or of blessing to 

what is mortal is essential. 

7<J 



You may take any single fragment of any cloud in the sky, and 
you will find it put together as if there had been a year's thought 
over the plan of it, arranged with the most studied inequality— with 
the most delicate symmetry— with the most elaborate contrast, a 
picture in itself. 

Where Poussin or Claude have three similar masses, Nature has 
fifty cloud pictures, made up each of millions of minor thoughts — 
fifty aisles penetrating through angelic chapels to the Shechinah of 
the blue — fifty hollow ways among bewildered hills .... but all 
unlike each other, except in beauty. 
80 



Bistant ©Itrttds* 

Look at the clouds, and watch the delicate sculpture of their ala- 
baster sides, and the rounded lustre of their magnificent rolling. 
They are meant to be beheld far away : they are shaped for their 
place, high above your head. 



When near us, clouds present only subdued and uncertain colors ; 
but when far from us, and struck by the sun on their under surface 
— so that the greater part of the light they receive is reflected — they 
become golden, purple, scarlet, and intense fiery white, mingled in 
all kinds of gradations. 



3|ato-©toud8. 



We habitually think of the rain-cloud only as dark and gray ; not 
knowing that we owe to it perhaps the fairest though not the most 

dazzling of the hues of heaven Often the rain-clouds in the 

dawn form soft level fields, which melt imperceptibly into the blue ; 
or when of less extent, gather into apparent bars, crossing the sheets 
of broader cloud above ; and all these bathed throughout in an un- 
speakable light of pure rose-color, and purple, and amber, and blue ; 

not shining, but misty-soft No clouds form such skies, none 

are so tender, various, inimitable. 
82 



IstxvB xxi l:atwB. 

AU true lovers of natural beauty hold it in reverence so deep, that 
they would as soon think of climbing the pillars of the choir Beau- 
vais for a gymnastic exercise, as of making a play-ground of Alpine 
snow; and they would not risk one hour of their joy among the 
hiU meadows on a May morning, for the fame or fortune of having 
stood on every pinnacle of the silver temple, and beheld the king- 
doms of the world from it. 



All Nature ; with one voice,-with one glory, is set to teach you 
reverence for the life communicated to you from the Father of 
Spirits. 



83 



The laftnite ^anety; txt Mature. 

The truths of Nature are one eternal change — one infinite variety. 
There is no bush on the face of the globe exactly like another bush ; 
— there are no two trees in the forest whose boughs bend into the 
same network, nor two leaves on the same tree which could not 
be told one from the other, nor two waves in the sea exactly alike. 



Nothing can be natural which is monotonous, nothing true which 

only tells one story It is one of the principles of Nature that 

she will not have one line nor color, nor one portion, nor atom of 
space without a change in it. There is not one of her shadows, 
tints, or lines, that is not in a state of perpetual variation. 
84 



All rivers, small or large, agree in one character : they like to lean 
a little on one side ; they cannot bear to have their channels deepest 
in the middle, but will always, if they can, have one bank to sun 
themselves upon, and another to get cool under ; one shingly shore 
to play over ; . . . . and another steep shore under which they can 
pause and purify themselves, and get the strength of their waves fully 
together for due occasions. Rivers in this way are just like wise men, 
who keep one side of their life for play, and another for work ; and 
can be brilliant, and chattering, and transparent when they are at 
ease, and yet take deep counsel on the other side. 
8s 



Th:3 Hissitxn ixi tbe UniUt. 

There is hardly a roadside pond or pool which has not as much 
landscape z'n it as above it. It is not the brown, muddy, dull thing 
we suppose it to be : it has a heart like ourselves, and in the bottom 
of that there are the boughs of the tall trees, and the blades of the 
shaking gras?, and all manner of hues, of variable, pleasant light out 
of the sky : nay, the ugly gutter, that stagnates over the drain bars, 
in the heart of the foul city, is not altogether base : down in that, if 
you will look deep enough, you may see the dark, serious blue of far- 
off sky, and the passing of pure clouds. 
86 



What infinite wonderfulness there is in vegetation, considered, as 
indeed it is, as the means by which the earth becomes the companion 
of man — his friend and his teacher ! . . . . Vegetation is as an im- 
perfect soul, given to meet the soul of man Consider the 

service which the flowers and trees, which man was at first appointed 
to keep, were intended to render to him in return for his care : and 
the service they still render to him, as far as he allows their influence, 
or fulfills his own task toward them. 
87 



^ S:ecxKnd Id^n. 



What can we conceive of that first Eden which we might not yet 
win back, if we chose ? — It was a place full of flowers, we say. Well : 
the flowers are always striving to grow wherever we suffer them ; and 

the fairer, the closer Assuredly, creatures such as we are can 

now fancy nothing lovelier than roses and lilies, which would grow 
for us side by side, leaf overlapping leaf, till the earth were white 

and red with them, if we cared to have it so What hinders us 

from covering as much of the world as we like with pleasant shade, 
and pure blossom, and goodly fruit ? Who forbids its valleys to be 
covered over with com till they laugh and sing ? 
88 



SxtijM flnvjms. 



Under the dark quietness of the undisturbed pines, there spring 
up, year by year, such company of joyful flowers as I know not the 

like of among all the blessing:s of the earth And all come forth 

in clusters crowded for very love There was the wood anem- 
one, star after star, closing now and then into nebulje : and there 
was the oxalis, troop by troop, like virginal processions of the Mois 

de Marie And ever and anon, a blue gush of violets and 

cowslip-bells in sunny places : and in the more open ground the 
vetch, and comfrey, and mezereon, and the small sapphire buds of 
the Polygola Alpiua, and the wild strawberry, just a blossom or 
two, all showered amidst the golden softness of deep, warm, amber- 
colored moss. 

89 



Tb^ BrtiBat): jptertt. 



That sentence of Genesis, " I have given thee every green herb for 
meat," has a profound symbohcal as well as literal meaning. It is 
not merely the nourishment of the body, but the food of the soul 
that is intended. The green herb is, of all nature, that which is 
most essential to the healthy spiritual hfe of man. Most of us do not 
need fine scenery ; the precipice and the mountain peak are not in- 
tended to be seen by all men But trees and fields and flowers 

were made for all. God has connected the labor which is essential to 
the bodily sustenance with the pleasures which are the healthiest for 
the heart : and when He made the ground stubborn, He made its 
herbage fragrant and its blossoms fair. 
90 



Gather a single blade of grass, and examine for a minute, quietly, 
its narrow, sword-shaped strip of fluted green. Nothing, as it seems 

there, of notable goodness or beauty And yet think of it well, 

and judge whether of all the gorgeous flowers that beam in summer 
air, and of all strong and goodly trees, pleasant to the eyes and good 
for food — ^there be any by man so deeply loved, by God so highly 

graced, as that narrow point of feeble g^eeu Consider what 

we awe merely to the meadow-grass, to the covering of the dark 
ground by that glorious enamel, by the companies of those soft, and 
countless, and peaceful spears. 

J 9» 



ThB Fields. 

The fields ! Follow but for a little time the thoughts of all that 
we ought to recognize in those words. All spring and summer is in 
them — the rests in noonday heat, the joy of flocks and herds,— the 
power of all shepherd life and meditation, the life of sunlight upon 
the world, falling in emerald streaks, and falling in soft blue shad- 
ows — pastures beside the pacing brooks — soft banks, and knolls of 
lowly hills — thymy slopes of down overlooked by the blue line of 
lifted sea — crisp lawns all dim with early dew, or smooth in evening 
warmth of barred sunshine, dinted by happy feet, and softening in 
their fall the sound of loving voices ; all these are summed in those 
simple words ; and these are not all. 
93 



Observe, the peculiar characters of the grass, which adapt it espe- 
cially for the ser^-ice of man, are its humility and cheerfulness. Its 
humility, in that it seems created for lowest service-appointed to be 
trodden on, and fed upon. Its cheerfulness, in that it seems to ex- 
ult under all kinds of violence and suffering. You roU it, and it is 
stronger the next day ; you mow it, and it multiplies its shoots, as 
if it were grateful ; you tread upon it, and it only sends up richer 
perfume. 

Spires of the fine gjasses .... mysterious evermore, not only 
with dew in the morning, or mirage at noon, but with the shaking 
threads of fine arborescence, each a little belfry of grain bells all 
a-chime. 



93 



I^icb^ns and HCtxssBS. 

Lichens and Mosses — meek creatures ! the first mercy of the earth, 
veiling with hushed softness its dintless rocks ; creatures full of pity, 
covering with strange and tender honor the scarred disgrace of ruin, 
— laying quiet finger on the trembling stones to teach them rest. . . . 
And as the earth's first mercy, so they are its last gift to us. When 
all other service is vain, from plant and tree, the soft mosses and 
gray lichens take up their watch by the head-stone. The woods, 
the blossoms, the gift-bearing grasses have done their part for a 
time, but these do service forever. Trees for the builder's yard, 
flowers for the bride's chamber, com for the granary, moss for the 
grave. 



Th3 Hissixrt): txi tba M:t);utxtait);$. 

Without mountains the air could not be purified, nor the flowing 
of the rivers sustained, and the earth must have become for the most 
part desert plain, or stag^nant marsh. But the feeding of the rivers 
and the purifying of the winds are the least of the services appointed 
to the hills. To fill the thirst of the human heart for the beauty of 
God's working, — to startle its lethargy with the deep and pure agi- 
tation of astonishment, are their higher missions. They are a great 
and noble architecture ; first giving shelter, comfort, and rest, and 
covered also with mighty sculpture and painted legend. 
95 



Thie Spirit xxf th^ jptiUs. 

The spirit of the hills is action ; that of the lowlands, repose, . , . 
There is an expression and a feeling about all the hill lines of Na- 
ture not to be reduced to line and rule — not to be measured by 
angles or described by compasses — not to be chipped out by the 
geologist, or equated by the mathematician. It is intangible, incal- 
culable, — a thing to be felt, not understood — to be loved, not com- 
prehended — a music of the eyes, a melody of the heart, whose truth 
is known only by its sweetness. 

96 



Consider the difference produced in the whole tone of a landscape 
color by the introduction of purple, violet, and deep ultramarine 

blue, which we owe to mountains In some sense a person 

who has never seen the rose-color of the rays of dawn crossing a 
blue mountain twelve or fifteen miles away, can hardly be said to 
know what tenderness in color means at all ; bright tenderness he 
may, indeed, see in the sky or in a flower, but this grave tenderness 
of the far-away hill- purples he cannot conceive. 



The higher mountains have their scenes of power and vastness, 
their blue precipices, and cloud-like snows. 
97 



A very old forest tree is a thing subject to the same laws of nature 
as ourselves ; it is an energetic being ; liable to and approaching 
death ; .... it is always telling us about the past, never pointing 
to the future 



Tree-worship may have taken a dark form when associated with 
the Draconian one ; or opposed as in Judea, to a purer faith ; but in 
itself, I believe it is always healthy, aiod though it retains little defi- 
nite hieroglyphic power in subsequent religion, it becomes instead 
of symbolic, real : the flowers and trees are themselves beheld and 
beloved, with a half-worshipping delight, which is always noble and 

healthful. 

98 



Th^ Sanctity txi ^txXtxt. 

God has employed color in His creation as the unvarying accom- 
paniment of all that is purest, most innocent, and most precious 

The ascertainment of the sanctity of color is not left to human sagac- 
ity. It is distinctly stated in Scripture. Blue, purple, and scarlet, 
Avith white and geld, as appointed in the Tabernacle ; this chord is 
the fixed base of all coloring with the workmen of every great age. 
.... All men completely organized and justly tempered enjoy 
color ; it is meant for the perpetual comfort and delight of the human 
heart : it is richly bestowed on the highest works of creation, and the 
eminent sign and seal of perfection in them. 
J 99 



FlXKWei^s as g^mfoiitos. 

Flowers seem intended for the solace of ordinary humanity : chil- 
dren love them : quiet, tender, contented ordinary people love them 
as they grow ; luxurious and disorderly people rejoice in them gath- 
ered. They are the cottager's treasure : and in the crowded town, 
mark, as with a little broken fragment of rainbow, the windows of- 
the workers in whose heart rests the covenant of peace. Passionate 
or religious minds contemplate them with fond, feverish intensity. 
.... To the child and the girl, the peasant and the manufacturing 
operative, to the grisette and the nun, the lover and monk, they ai-e 
precious always. 



" Let the dry land appear :'• .... try to foUow the finger of God, 
as it engraved upon the stone tables of the earth the letters and the 
law of its everlasting form ; as gulf by gulf the channels of the deep 
were ploughed, and cape by cape the lines were traced with Divine 
foreknowledge of the shores that were to limit the nations ; and chain 
by chain the mountain waUs were lengthened forth, and their founda- 
tions fastened for ever : and the compass was set upon the face of 
the depth : and the fields and the highest parts of the dust of the 
world were made : and the right hand of Christ first strewed the 
snow on Lebanon, and smoothed the slopes of Calvary. 



In color it is not red, but rose-color, which is most beautiful, 
neither such actual green as we find in summer foliage, but such 
gray-green as that into which nature modifies her distant tints, or 
such pale green and uncertain as we see in sunset sky, and in the 
cleft of the glacier, and the chrysoprase, and the sea foam. And so 
of all colors : they may be deep and full, but there is a solemn mod- 
eration even in their very fullness, and a holy reference beyond and 
out of their own nature to great harmonies by which they are gov- 
erned, and in obedience to which is their glory. The very brilliancy 
and real power of all is dependent on the chastening of it, as of a 
voice on its gentleness, an action on its calmness, and as all moral 
vigor on self-command. 



The Influence xrl Batu^^e. 

Instead of supposing the love of nature necessarily connected with 
the faithlessness of the age, I believe it is connected properly with 
the benevolence and liberty of the age ; that it is precisely the most 
healthy element which distinctively belongs to us ; and that out of 
it, cultivated no longer in levity or ignorance, but in earnestness 
and as a duty, results will spring of an importance at present incon- 
ceivable ; and lights arise, which, for the first time in man's history, 
will reveal to him the true nature of his hfe, the true field for his en- 
ergies, and the true relations between him and his Maker. 
103 



*Inflmit|. 



Infinity — It is of all visible things the least mateiial, the least 
finite, the farthest withdrawn from the earth prison-house, the most 
typical of the nature of God, the most suggestive of the glory of His 
dwelling-place. For the sky of night, though we may know it 
boundless, is dark, it is a studded vault, a roof that seems to shut us 
in and down : but the bright distance has no limit— we feel its infin- 
ity as we rejoice in its purity of light. 

The infinity of God is not mysterious, it is only unfathomable : 
not concealed, but incomprehensible : it is a clear infinity, the dark- 
ness of the pure, unsearchable sea. 
104 



Of all inorganic substances, acting in their own proper nature, 
and without assistance or combination, water is the most wonaerful. 
If we think of it as the source of all the changefulness and oeauty of 
clouds ; as the instrument by which the earth was modelled into sym- 
metry, and its crags chiselled into grace : then in the form of snow ; 
in the foam of the torrent— in the morning mist, in the broad lake 
and glancing river ; finally in that which is to all human minds tlie 
best emblem of unwearied, unconquerable power, the wild, various, 
fantastic, tameless unity of the sea ; what shall we compare to this 
mighty, this universal element, for glory and for beauty ? It is like 
trying to paint a soul. 

MS 



Jt ?at.b; lfrDp:ar:ed. 



How seldom do we enough consider, as we walk beside the mar- 
gins of our pleasant brooks, how beautiful and wonderful is that 
ordinance, of which every blade of grass that waves in their clear 
water is a perpetual sign, that the dew and rain fallen on the face 
of the earth shall find no resting-place : shall find on the contrary 

paths prepared for them And the gateways of guarding 

mountains opened for them in cleft and chasm, none letting them 
in their pilgrimage, and from far off the great heart of the sea 

calling them to itself. 

io6 



Time and Beca^. 



In the hand of the great Architect of the mountains, time and 
decay are as much the instruments of His purpose as the forces by 
which He first led forth the troops of the hills in leaping flocks :— 
the lightning and the torrent, and the wasting and weariness of in- 
numerable ages all bear their part in the working out of one consist- 
ent plan : and the Builder of the temple for ever stands beside His 
work appointing the stone that is to fall, and the pillar that is to be 
abased, and guiding all the seeming wildness of chance and change, 
into ordained splendors, and foreseen harmonies. 
107 



gtaad and Itril. 

This I know — and this may by all men be known — that no good 
or lovely thing exists in this world without its correspondent dark- 
ness ; and that the universe presents itself continually to mankind 
under the stern aspect of warning or of chioce, the good and the evil 

set on the right hand and the left And where the beauty and 

wisdom of the Divine working are most manifested, there also are 
manifested most clearly the terror of God's wrath, and inevitable- 

ness of His power So to the end of time it will be : to the 

end the cry will still be heard along the Alpine winds, " Hear, oh ye 
mountains, the Lord's controversy." 



3f.ep:ijs^' after Bestt^uotimi. 

As we pass beneath the hills which have been shaken by earth- 
quake and torn by convulsion, we find that periods of perfect repose 
succeeded those of destruction. The pools of calm water lie beneath 
their fallen rocks, the water-hlies gleam, and the reeds whisper 
among their shadows : the village rises over the forgotten graves, 
and its church-tower, white through the storm-twilight, proclaims a 
renewed appeal to His protection in whose hand " are all the cor- 
ners of the earth, and the strength of the hills is His also," 
109 



Mtx^^U^^n^^iUQ. 



With respect to that sore temptation of novel-reading, it is not the 
badness of a novel we should dread, but its over-wrought interest. 
.... Even the best romance becomes dangerous if by its excite- 
ment it renders the ordinary course of life uninteresting, and in- 
creases the morbid thirst for useless acquaintance with scenes in 

which we shall never be called upon to act Novels should be 

chosen not for what is ouf of them, but for what is t'n them. 



That literature is best which points out in common life and famil- 
iar things the objects for hopeful labour, and for humble love. 



Self-Jttinibilatio;^. 



The power of the Masters is shown by their self-annihilation. It 
is commensurate with the degree in which they themselves appear not 
in their work. The harp of the minstrel is untruly touched if his 
o\vn glory is all that it records. Every great writer may be at once 
known by his guiding the mind far from himself, to the beauty 
which is not of his creation, and the knowledge which is past his 
finding out. 



I have always found that the less we speak of our intentions, the 
more chance there is of our realizing them. 



The mn ni GnXixv,. 

Of all God's gifts to the sight of man, color is the holiest, the 

most divine, the most solemn What would the world and 

our own existence become if the blue were taken from the sky, and 
the gold from the sunshine, and the verdure from the leaves, and the 
crimson from the blood which is the life of man, the flush from the 
cheek, the darkness from the eye, the radiance from the hair ? — If 
we could but see, for an instant, white human creatures living in a 

white world — we would soon feel what we owe to color The 

purest and most thoughtful minds are those which love color the 
most. 



'^ulganttj. 



The higher a man stands, the more the word "vulgar" becomes 
unintelligible to him. 

There is never vulgarity in a whole truth however commonplace. 
It may be unimportant or painful. It cannot be vulgar. Vulgarity 
is only in concealment of truth, or in affectation. 



Men become vulgar precisely in proportion as they are incapable 
of sympathy, of all that, in deep insistence on the common, but most 
accurat: term, may be called the "tact " or touch-faculty of body and 
soul, .... that fineness and fulness of sensation, beyond reason, 
the guide and sanctifier of reason itself. 



3|xi:yal ^t);ad$. 



People will discover at last that royal roads to anything can no 
more be laid in iron than they can in dust ; that there are, in fact, 
no royal roads to anywhere worth going to : .... do we want to 
be strong ? — we must work. To be hungry ? — we must starve. To 
be happy ? — we must be kind. To be wise ? — we must look and 
think; no changing of place at a hundred miles an hour, nor making 
of stuffs a thousand yards a minute, will make us one whit stronger, 
happier, or wiser. 



Tb^ figbt Spirit ttxv Wixvh. 

We have certain work to do for our bread, and that is to be done 
strenuously : other work to do for our delight, and that is to be done 
heartily : neither is to be done by halves or shifts, but with a will ; 
and what is not worth this effort is not to be done at aU. There is 
dreaming enough, and earthiness enough in human existence with- 
out our turning the few glowing moments of it into mechanism ; 
and since our Ufe must at the best be but a vapor that appears but 
for a little time and then vanishes away, let it at least appear as a 
cloud in the height of Heaven, not as the thick darkness that broods 
over the blast of the Furnace, and roUing of the Wheel. 
J IIS 



&0d a 3|o.U8X)h0ld S0d. 

Our God is a household God as well as a Heavenly One : He has 
an altar in every man's dwelling 

If men lived like men indeed, their houses would be temples, which 
we should hardly dare to injure, and in which it would make us holy 
to be permitted to live. 

This is the true nature of home — it is the place of Peace : the 
shelter, not only from all injury, but from all terror, doubt, and 

division. In so far as it is not this, it is not home But so far 

as it is a sacred place watched over by Household Gods, before 
whose faces none may come but those whom they can receive with 
love — so far it fulfils the praise of home. 
ii6 



Tba Stonj ni a Building. 

Every human action gains in honor, in gjace, in all true magnifi- 
cence, by its regard to things that are to come Therefore, 

when we build, let us think that we build forever. Let it not- be 
for present delight, nor for present use alone : let it be such work as 

our descendants will thank us for And will say as they look 

upon the labour and wrought substance, " See ! this our fathers did 
for us." For, indeed, the greatest glory of a building is not in its 
stones, or in its gold. Its glory is in its a^e, and in that deep sense 
of voicefulness, of stem watching, of mysterious sympathy, which 
we feel in walls that have long been washed by the passing waves of 

humanity. 

X17 



Do what you can, and confess frankly what you are unable to do ; 
neither let your effort be shortened for fear of failure, nor your con- 
fession silenced for fear of shame And while in aU things 

that we see, or do, we are to derive perfection, and strive for it, we 
are nevertheless not to prefer mean victory to honorable defeat ; not 
to lower the level of our aim that we may more surely enjoy the 
complacency of success. 

It is not a question of how much we are to do, but of how it is to be 
done : it is not a question of doing; more, but of doing better. 
ii8 



JfXKlitical Icxxn^mtj. 



There is no wealth but Life. Life, including all its powers of 
love, of joy, and of admiration. That country is the richest which 
nourishes the greatest number of noble and happy human beings : 
that man is richest who, having perfected the functions of his own 
life to the utmost, has also the widest helpful influence, both personal, 
and by means of his possessions, over the lives of others. A strange 
political economy : the only one, nevertheless, that ever was or can 
be : all political economy founded on self-interest being but the ful- 
filment of that which once brought schism into the Policy of angels, 
and ruin into the Economy of Heaven. 
119 



The Sixirii txf Salf-SacnfiDa. 

" I left not only parents and kindred, but the accustomed luxuries 
of delicate life.'''' These words of St. Jerome's throw full light on 
what to our less courageous temper, seems the exaggerated reading 
by the early converts of Christ's words to them — " He that lovtth 
father or mother more than Me, is not worthy of Me." We are 
content to leave, for much lower interests, either father or mother, 
and do not see the necessity of any farther sacrifice. We should know 
more of ourselves and of Christianity if we oftener sustained what 
St. Jerome found the more searching trial. 

I20 



The UqU ai the WnvU. 

What we are to pray for is the Light of the World : . . . . the 
Light "that lighteth every man that coineth into the world.'''' You 
will find that it is no metaphor— nor has it ever been so. To the 
Persian, the Greek, and the Christian, the sense of the power of the 
God of Light, has been one and the same. That power is not merely 
in teaching or protecting, but in the enforcement of purity of body, 
and of equity or justice in the heart now, and here, actual purity in 
the midst of the world's foulness, practical justice in the midst of 
the world's iniquity. 



jpiigb ^vt 



High art consists neither in altering, nor in improving nature ; 
but in seeking throughout nature for *' whatsoever things are lovely, 
and whatsoever things are pure"; in loving them, in displaying to 
the utmost of the painter's power such loveUness as is in them, and 
directing the thoughts of others to them by winning art, or gentle 
emphasis. 

The characteristic of great art is that it includes the largest possible 
quantity of Truth in the most perfect possible harmony. 



Great art is pre-eminently the expression of the spirits of great 

pn 



men 

123 



Jtrt unlike Bmmi)^. 

The Arts, as regards teachableness, differ from the Sciences in 
this, that their power is founded not merely on facts which can be 
communicated, but on dispositions which require to be created. . 
The more beautiful the Art, the more it is essentially the work of 

people who feel themselves wrong Whenever the arts and 

labours of Hfe are fulfilled in the spirit of striving against mis-rule, 
and doing whatever we have to do honorably and perfectly, they 
invariably bring happiness, as much as seems possible to the nature 
of man. 

T "3 



great ^vt 



Remember always you have two characters in which all greatness 
of Art consists. First, the earnest and intense seizing of natural 
facts ; then the ordering those facts by strength of human intellect, 
so as to make them, for all who look upon them, to the utmost 
serviceable, memorable, and beautiful, and thus great Art is nothing 
else than the type of strong and noble life. 



In human life you have the two fields of rightful toil for ever dis- 
tinguished, yet for ever associated : Truth first,— plan or design 
founded thereon, so in Art you have the same two fields.— Truth 
first, — plan or design founded thereon. 

124 



A general law, of singular importance in the present day, a law 
of common-sense is— not to decorate things belonging to purposes 
of active and occupied life. Wherever you can rest, then decorate ; 
where rest is forbidden, so is beauty. You must not mix ornament 
with business, any more than you may mix play. Work first, and 
then rest ; work first, and then gaze, but do not use golden plough- 
shares, nor bind ledgers in enamel. Do not thrash with sculptured 
flails ; nor put bas-reliefs on millstones. 
125 



iSrmt^t) and Unv^, 

By simply obeying the orders of the Founder of your reUgion, all 
grace, graciousness, or beauty and favour of gentle life, will be 
given to you in mind and body, in work and in rest. The Grace of 
Christ exists, and can be had if you will, .... and as you know 
more and more of the created world, you will find that the true will 
of its Maker is that its creatures should be happy : — that He has 
made everything beautiful in its time and its place, and that it is 
chiefly by the fault of men, when they are allowed the liberty of 
thwarting His laws, that Creation groans or travails in pain. 
126 



Remember, it is not so much in buying- pictures, as in detng pic- 
tures, that you can encourage a noble school. The best patronage 
of Art is not that which seeks for the pleasure of sentiment in a 
vague ideality, nor for beauty of form in marble image : but that 
which educates your children into living heroes, and binds down the 
flights and the fondnesses of the heart into practical duty and faith- 
ful devotion. 

127 



grrtxwirrg ix% St[a€B. 



A Spirit does actually exist which teaches the ant her path, the 
bird her building, and men, in an instinctive and marvellous way, 

whatever lovely acts and noble deeds are possible to them I 

pray you with all earnestness to prove and know within your hearts, 
that all thing's lovely and righteous are possible for those who believe 
in their possibility, and who determine that, for their part, they will 
make every day's work contribute to them. Let every morning be to 
you as the beginning of life, and every setting sun be to you as its 
close ; then let every one of these short lives leave its sure record of 
some kindly thing done for others, some goodly strength or knowl- 
edge gained for yourselves. 

128 






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